They even removed some near fuel tanks. In the past the missing tiles were in less critical areas.

I'm surprised they didn't take less risks just to avoid a narrative of failure.

NitpickLawyer 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I'm surprised they didn't take less risks just to avoid a narrative of failure.

That's the advantage of being privately owned. "Vibes" (hah) don't matter. Public opinion doesn't matter. What matters is executing on your vision / goals. And they're doing that.

The fact that they're bringing in loads of cash from Starlink surely helps. They haven't had the need to raise money in a while, now.

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iwontberude 5 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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WalterBright 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Selling rockets to the government is not receiving gifts of taxpayer money.

	▲	peterfirefly 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Especially not when they are cheaper and/or better than the competitors!

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avmich 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I think you're wrong saying they are cash flow negative. Both Starlink and payload launching business are profitable in SpaceX.

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boxed 4 days ago | parent [-]

He means that they are cash flow negative if you discount all government income and at the same time include all costs with those launches :P

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avmich 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> He means that they are cash flow negative if you discount all government income and at the same time include all costs with those launches :P

That would be a strange evaluation.

	▲	boxed 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I've seen worse from SpaceX haters. I've had a "conversation" here on HN by someone who claimed that SpaceX doesn't land boosters anymore for example. Conspiracy theories basically.

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iwontberude 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Bingo they aren’t anywhere near the solution to return the investment and will be raising debt or begging for more government money. They will be (progressively) nationalized to justify the additional cash infusions to keep the mission from being a complete failure. NASA wants their moon base I guess.

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somenameforme 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's probably the first step on the path to stagnation.

There's a lot more eyes on them now a days, and Musk is much more well known, so it creates a lot more drama - but they've done the exact same process with everything. They even published a montage of failures [1] on the way to their first successful landing 'back in the day.' It was fiery, but mostly peaceful. They didn't even hit a shark!

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ

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jjk166 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unless they took extra risks to hedge against the string of failures continuing. "Yes we blew up three times in a row, but this time we meant to do that, so it's a success" sounds an awful lot better than "We did everything we possibly could to prevent it from blowing up this time but it still did"

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ndr 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would they need to care about narrative at this point?

It's privately own, might as well learn as much as possible with each dollar spent.

	▲	DoesntMatter22 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm certain they don't care about the narrative because ultimately even though yesterday was a big success some places had headlines that really downplayed it

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pfannkuchen 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Does it really seem like Elon cares about public opinion at this point?

	▲	apercu 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		He acts like he cares a lot, comes across to me as someone deeply insecure and unhappy but I’m not qualified to diagnose him.
	▲	anthem2025 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]